Tonight and Tomorrow
by Juliette Louise
Summary: The crew of the Normandy celebrate their victory over the Collectors.  But where did Shepard and Krios disappear off to?  Rated for naughtiness.
1. Chapter 1

The decon cycle hissed to life, and Shepard dropped her helmet onto the floor, uncaring.

"Joker..." She said, hitting the intercom. She didn't need to finish the statement. The Normandy shuddered under her feet and from somewhere on the other side of the wall, a cheer went up.

"We just hit the other side of the Relay, Commander. We're home!" He said, before the transmission dissolved into happy clamor.

Shepard let out a deep breath, nodding, though of course he couldn't see. Her head rolled back on her shoulders, eyes closed. The cold spray of the decon fluid felt good on her sweaty face and neck. She was so tired—the kind of deep bone-tired that made her hands tremble and her eyes burn.

She had never felt better.

Samara laid a hand on her shoulder, startling her.

"For what it's worth, Commander, I never doubted that we would survive." She said, her deep voice completely serene and even.

Shepard narrowed her eyes.

"Really?" She said, skeptically.

"No. I was actually quite certain that we'd all be killed. I'm pleasantly surprised." Samara intoned, her expression never shifting.

From her left, Miranda snorted. It was the closest thing to humor Samara had ever demonstrated. Apparently the celebratory atmosphere was effecting even her.

Then the decon cycle finished and the door hissed open. The rest of the crew stood on the other side-non-Humans and Cerberus employees alike—some in scuffed and bloody armor, others in uniform, still more in their civvies and even a few in pajamas. A wall of raucous cheers went up as they emerged.

Suddenly everyone was talking and embracing her all at once. Jacob, thumping her on the back with bone-jarring force, Tali, wrapping her arms around her and Kelly at the same time, shrieking and jumping up and down. Somewhere to her right, Gabby and Donnelly were alternating between sobbing and kissing passionately. Over to the left, Grunt had somehow gotten Jack onto his shoulders and was carrying her around while she howled and punched the air.

Shepard found herself laughing, for once content to just be carried away by something.

"...ard! Shepard!" The sound of her name being called snapped her attention back and over her shoulder. It was Garrus. He was on the edge of the group with an awkward Mordin, a smiling but sedate Thane, and Legion, who was more-or-less always just Legion. A rowdy group of Cerberus crew were gathered around him. He gestured at the elevator with his head.

"We're going up to get Joker. Wanna come?" He shouted over the din.

She made a show of surveying the group.

"I think I'll stick around for awhile." She said, laughing as a somehow already-drunk Zaeed ran into her and kept going.

Garrus gave her what may have been a knowing look, or she could have just been her imagination. Then he winked at her, and she knew it wasn't her imagination.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" He said innocently as the elevator doors closed.

With difficulty, she eventually managed to maneuver herself to the edge of the increasingly rambunctious group. Several crew-members had produced alcohol from somewhere, and a party was definitely winding up.

Mordin and Thane were still parked by the edge of the group—even Legion had abandoned them. The two were standing silently, slightly awkwardly, watching the merriment.

Her eyes flickered over Thane. He gave her a deep bow.

"Congratulations, Shepard. I never doubted you." His generous lips quirked into the barest smile. A shiver started at the base of her spine and climbed all the way into her scalp. Her breath quickened noticeably. Memory made her body respond before she could stop it. He only held her gaze evenly.

"Oh?" She said, tearing herself away from the past forcibly. She arched an eyebrow at him skeptically.

"Certainly." He said emphatically, nodding.

"Oh! You were serious." She said, her posture maybe a little too military, hands clasped behind her back like she was "at ease", instead of actually at ease.

"Of course, Shepard." He said.

"Good. Good. I appreciate that."

He bowed again. Someday, she would persuade him to stop bowing.

Shepard cleared her throat, pulling her eyes away from him with difficulty.

"Mordin, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Professor Solus snapped to attention.

"Yes. Please. Let's go to the lab." He said, already charging away from the group.

"I don't want to pull you away from the party..." She said as they rounded the corner and stepped onto the elevator.

"Oh please, Shepard. Human displays of exuberance-ah, disturbing to me. Pleased for an excuse to escape from obligatory celebration."

The CIC deck was completely deserted. Mordin's boots clicked on the deck-plating. The door to the lab hissed open, and Mordin went to stand in front of his console.

"What can I do for you, Shepard?"

Shepard put her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. She cleared her throat.

"Well, Mordin…Do you remember a few days ago we were talking...in the lab..."

Mordin looked at her expectantly.

"...And, ah, we talked about a topical anti-inflammatory...in case of...for the..."

Mordin just stared at her, blinking. She glared back, eyes narrowed. She suspected strongly that he was playing with her, but of course he would never admit it.

"...You were right about the rash, OK?" She nearly shrieked.

Mordin grinned and tossed her a sealed vial from somewhere.

"Of course. Always right. Now get out of here, Shepard."

"You're a terrible individual, Mordin."

He waved her off, already looking intently into his research terminal.

"Yes, yes. Just be gentle—poor man's been celibate for ten years." He said dryly as she fled the lab.


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard approached the elevator just as a huge group carrying Joker shoulder-high emerged. Another ragged round of cheers went up as they saw her.

"Oh Christ!" Joker said, as half of the people carrying him ceased doing so in order to salute.

"At ease! Carry on! Please!" She objected, sliding into the elevator.

Finally, she reached the top floor. EDI opened the door to her quarters.

"Nobody gets in but Thane." She said, as the door closed behind her.

"Of course, Shepard. Also, congratulations on defeating the Collectors. Incidentally, I always believed that we would be victorious."

"Really?" She said.

"No." EDI said simply, and the face of the door lock went from green to red.

Shepard snorted, unbuckling the straps on her chest-plate and kicking her boots off. She stripped off the rest of her armor and surveyed the room, her pulse beginning to quicken.

Her Sunfish fluttered sedately around their tank. A few datapads were in a neat pile on her desk. A few model ships adorned one wall—her only concession to nonessential personal items. Shepard was meticulously organized and tidy—a habit from bootcamp she'd never been able to break.

So it was uncharacteristic that her bed was a disaster—her sheet and blanket were in a heap on the floor, along with the clothes she'd been wearing when Thane had appeared in her doorway only a few hours ago.

She gathered up her armor and discarded clothing and threw them into the closet. She'd deal with it later.

Shepard practically ran into her shower. She was covered in sweat and medigel from various suit-breaches. Her hair was matted with gore and unidentified Collector goo. She washed hurriedly, then dried off.

Shepard pried open Mordin's concoction and applied it gingerly to the afflicted areas, listening carefully for the sound of her door hissing open, or Thane's deep voice. But there was only the bubbling of her aquarium.

Exasperated, she threw on fresh cargo pants and a T-shirt, pacing in front of the door. Even through several steel bulkheads, she could hear voices raised in what might have been song, if perhaps their owners had been less inebriated. Everyone else was celebrating, why wasn't she?

"EDI." She said at last. "Where is Thane Krios?"

"Mr. Krios is in the Life Support bay." EDI's voice responded.

"Life Support? What the hell is he doing there?" She barked.

EDI was silent, apparently having sorted out the concept of the rhetorical question at last.

Shepard put her hands on her hips.

"Oh, I'm gonna get him for this." She said out loud, to no one in particular.

* * *

Thane sat alone in the quiet LS bay, trying to still his thoughts for meditation, but peace was difficult to find. He was strangely unmoved by the horrors of the Collector base—it was the few hours that immediately proceeded their arrival that wouldn't settle.

The moment was tied up in too much fear—fear of failure, the fear that she would die in front of him, and the knowledge that even if they lived, she would eventually watch _him_ die. It was not how he'd hoped their long-anticipated union would be.

It was his fault. Like most military he'd encountered, Shepard was expert at cordoning off distasteful thoughts, dealing with them at a more appropriate time. But Thane was no soldier. He hadn't been trained for long campaigns of slogging through scores of enemies, moving through the constant grinding horror of warfare.

Not that consummating their relationship hadn't been enjoyable—quite the opposite. Any concerns he'd had about the physical aspects of the act had been unfounded. He hoped that he'd given at least as much pleasure as he'd received, but there'd been no time for any conversation—or anything else, for that matter.

And he'd realized at some point in the last few hours that he loved her. He had, in fact, for some time. The intense emotions attached to that realization had taken him off-guard from the moment it had surfaced. Her vibrant soul had shocked him out of complacency, out of what his ancestors had once called "battle sleep". Her influence had merged his mind and body into one actualized being for the first time in ten long years. He was only just realizing.

He hoped that she was enjoying the celebration that had now moved noisily into the observation decks. The final battle with the Collectors had gone almost inconceivably well, and it was due primarily to her courage and leadership. She deserved to celebrate, not be bogged down by emotional issues.

Thane started as the door to LS hissed open.

He stood and turned. Shepard's hair was still wet, and she smelled like soap. She had fresh clothes on but had apparently forgotten boots. She was scowling at him.

"Thane, what the hell are you doing down here?" She said.

"_Siha_. You should be celebrating."

"So should you." She pointed out, a wan smile creeping onto her face. She looked absolutely exhausted—her face was pale and drawn, there were dark circles under her eyes.

He shrugged, a gesture he'd picked up from the Human crew-members. "I'm trying to...assimilate all that has happened. It's been an eventful day, to say the least."

She sidled up to him, one hand coming to rest on his ribs. A sigh came out of him before he could stop it. Being touched, even incidentally, was something that he hadn't even realized he'd missed so much until he felt her hands on him for the first time.

"Why didn't you come back to my quarters?" She said softly.

"I didn't want to be...presumptuous."

Shepard arched an eyebrow. "Presumptuous? I thought you'd consider yourself welcome in my rooms anytime after...well." She trailed off, a blush starting on cheeks in a way that he found endearing for some reason. The woman who'd just killed her way through an army blushed when she thought of him.

She saw his resolve bending, and put her arms around him, her hands sliding under his shirt to rest on his bare back.

"Besides..." She said, kissing a line up his neck, "The thought of you down here on this sad little cot in the dark makes me feel awful."

Thane shivered as she found the sensitive spot under his jawline. They'd been very careful in their last encounter to minimize Shepard's oral contact with his skin-after all, they _were_ about to storm the Collector base, and they didn't know the extent to which she'd be...compromised by his chemical makeup. Now that they were out of danger, however, she seemed to be making up for lost time.

"You are very persuasive." He admitted, but didn't move.

She looked up at him with her strange, pale eyes. They locked with his for a moment before she took a step back, her expression changing. He immediately missed her warm hands on his back.

"Are you...regretting how things turned out, Mr. Krios?" She said quietly, her body language subtly closing off.

"No. No!" He said, pulling her into him again. He felt her relax slightly. "Not the way you're thinking. I feel regretful that I allowed fear and sadness and frustration to find their way into the experience. It was not how I'd hoped our first time together would be, _Siha_."

Shepard seemed to consider. "I'm not sure what to say. Do over? Without the looming threat of death and liquefaction? In my quarters? Now?"

"As I said, you are very persuasive."

Her eyes narrowed, and the corner of her lips perked into a sly grin. "I look forward to persuading you further. Through any means necessary."


	3. Chapter 3

Tali's head was throbbing inside her helmet. It had all started innocuously enough: Garrus said, "Here, try this!" and handed her some kind of Turian beverage with a slice of fruit dangling from the rim, and half an hour later, she had a terrific headache and a desire to lie down somewhere dim.

She was quietly cursing Garrus Vakarian and whoever had taught him to mix drinks when she stalked into Engineering. She'd set up a cot down there, finding the rhythmic throbbing of the drive-core reassuring.

However, as she was about to turn the corner into the monitoring station, she heard something...strange. A thud, some sort of muffled declaration, then giggling.

"_Keelah_!" She said involuntarily as she got a view of the room. It seemed that Gabby Daniels and Ken Donnelly were finally resolving their long-burning sexual tension. She put her hands up to shield her eyes from the horror.

Gabby and Ken shrieked simultaneously, unsuccessfully trying to cover their various exposed body-parts.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Tali declared, backing away slowly, her eyes still covered. The door hissed closed in front of her.

Tali sighed heavily, dropping her hands. There was no hope in recovering her bedroll from the midst of that conflagration.

Grumbling, she stalked down the hallway to the utility closet and pulled out fresh blankets. Tomorrow she would have to have a long talk with Shepard about the strange and unpleasant behavior of her Human crewmates when they were celebrating.

Tali took the other entrance into the Engineering portion of the ship, her feet carrying her down the stairs and into the drive-core chamber itself. The huge, swirling orb of Eezo was actually very well shielded, but most of the crew still seemed to be under the mistaken impression that getting too close might lead to some degree of radiation exposure. It was a myth she'd never sought to expel, since it guaranteed her somewhere to be alone on the ship at all times.

Still grumbling, Tali put one blanket on the ground, lie down, and positioned the other one over herself. She wasn't exactly comfortable down on the cold ground, but at least the drive-core chamber was quiet.

Tali's eyes slid closed. It had been an exhausting day and...

...and...

...what in Keelah's mercy was that noise?

There was a sort of thumping sound, then a creak, another thump, then a squealing-like a bare hand being drawn across a pane of glass.

Tali's eyes snapped open and she searched the room. Empty, of course. She peered into the high windows that interrupted the metal walls of the chamber. One opened into the monitoring station in Engineering, of course, and the other into Life Support...

It looked like there was some sort of scuffle going on up there. She squinted to see in the near-darkness. Someone's back was pressed up against the glass of the window—a human in black cargo pants and a T-shirt, and another person was holding them there. What could people possibly be fighting over on such a happy occasion?

She looked closer. The other person in the room was Thane Krios—it had taken her a moment to see him in the dark because of his black jacket and the shadows of the chamber. The human was, upon closer inspection, Commander Shepard.

And they were not fighting.

Tali sighed and pulled up stakes yet again. She crept out of the drive-core chamber, dragging her bedclothes behind her. Maybe Chakwas would let her sleep on an exam table. Surely no one was doing anything wildly inappropriate in there.

From then on, she would have to remember not to _look up _when working on the drive-core.

* * *

"Stop distracting me. We're going upstairs." Shepard said breathlessly.

Thane's quiet laughter reverberated through her chest.

"You win." He said into her neck. His breath was beginning to feel warm as his heart-rate increased. "Lead the way."

He took a step backwards away from the window, but offered his arm to her in a very gentlemanly fashion. Shepard took it happily. The world was starting to dip and sway slightly even from what limited oral contact she'd had with his skin.

Shepard straightened her garments, noticing how her own heart was decidedly racing. She cleared her throat, and they slid out into the hallway together.

Thane had almost what could be described as a conspiratorial smile as they crept down the hallway to the elevator. The lift doors opened as they approached.

Jacob and Grunt were in a fit of laughter inside.

"...And it turned out they weren't even crabs!" Grunt finished, practically gasping for breath.

When the two looked up and saw who it was who stood before them, Jacob straightened up jerkily and offered a salute, his face flushed from laughter. Grunt nodded in greetings.

Thane flashed her a vaguely panicked look. She rolled her eyes and pulled him along into the elevator.

"Commander. Thane." Jacob said, trying desperately to seem sober.

They nodded at him.

"Joining the fun, Shepard? A Battlemaster should be the center of the party on a night like this. You can regale us with tales of your many victories." Grunt said.

"Oh, you seem to be getting along just fine without me. If it's stories you want, make Garrus tell you about that time the merc army ambushed him while he slept. He killed fifteen people in nothing but a pair of shorts." She said as they arrived on the CIC deck.

Grunt and Jacob ambled out of the elevator, then stopped and turned, realizing, perhaps, that Thane was still inside and the only other floor above the CIC was the captain's quarters.

"Oh." Jacob said, his head tilting, probably as a myriad of clues fell into place.

"It's taken you _this_ long to work it out, huh?" Grunt said to him in the moment before the doors closed.

Shepard fell back against the wall of the elevator, laughing exhaustedly. The exchange had even coaxed a smile out of Thane.

"So much for discretion." He said dryly.

She shrugged. "I don't care who knows. I hope they put it in the damned Cerberus newsletter."

His hand found hers, tugging her gently into him.

"There would be some very jealous Human men in the organization, I think." He smirked.

The mental and physical exertion of the day coupled with the mildly psychotropic effect of Drell pheromones was creating a sort of dreamlike atmosphere. Her surroundings felt increasingly indistinct, but she was hyper-aware of Thane: his hand resting gently on the small of her back, the contact their hips were making, the mirth in his eyes.

He leaned forward to kiss her and the intensity of the effect was almost startling. His lips were so soft, cool but pleasantly so, his tongue ghosting over her own like he was still unsure whether she would receive him. She leaned into him, deepening the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck, feeling distinctly her breasts pressing into the hard wall of his chest.

The elevator doors opened at last, and broke off their contact only long enough to drag him by the hand across the narrow hallway and into her quarters.

"EDI. Lock the door and hold all my messages except emergencies. And by that I mean, 'the ship is on fire we're all going to die' type emergencies." She declared, pushing Thane's jacket off of his shoulders without further preamble.

"Of course, Shepard." EDI responded coolly, the door slamming shut and locking.

They advanced across the room, dropping articles of clothing as they went. When they reached her bed they were both topless, and Thane had gotten his boots off somehow.

Shepard was walking backwards, Thane's hands undoing her belt, when the bed impacted with the backs of her knees and she sat down on it automatically, pulling him over on top of her.

Thane caught his weight on his elbows, one knee between her legs.

He smiled slyly.

"_Siha_, you..." he said before his eyes widened, his hand moving softly across one breast, then over her shoulder.

He inhaled sharply.

Shepard looked down at herself. She had bruises over her ribs from his fingers and one on her shoulder from his mouth, as well as a few red welts on her chest where they'd had repeated contact before—they looked less angry since she'd applied Mordin's treatment but hadn't totally receded.

Thane was standing again.

She pushed herself up on her elbows.

"No, Thane! It's fine. Mordin gave me something for the allergic reaction. It will go away as my body gets used to yours—like the phenomenal effect." She insisted.

"And the bruises?" He said, unmoving.

The truth was that Thane was a lot stronger than her, as well as being heavier and denser. The encounter they'd had in the last hour or so before arriving at the Collector base had been so hurried and frantic that she hadn't thought to mention that she was probably a bit more delicate than Drell women. She hadn't _really_ thought that she'd have visible marks later, but then again she was preoccupied with other things at the time. Like having great, life-affirming sex immediately before going off to get herself killed.

He held his hand gently to her ribs, each bruise perfectly corresponding to a fingertip. Silently, he pulled her pants down off of her hips and discarded them, his cool touch ghosting over the still tender, irritated skin of her inner thighs. This part of her had the worst of it, of course, and she was undeniably sore.

Shepard felt a flood of tenderness for him—trained from early childhood to be a ruthless hunter of men and still so gentle. The core of him was pure, untainted by all the violence around them.

"I'm fine. Maybe not as durable as you assumed. Now we can take our time and learn these things about each other."

She stood, wrapping her arms around him. Finally, he reciprocated, sighing into her neck. Then, unexpectedly, he reached down and picked her up easily, depositing her on her bed and throwing a blanket over her. He slid in next to her.

"It's not a mistake I will make again." He said solemnly.

Thane put a hand between her shoulder blades and turned them so that she was on top. Shepard straddled his narrow hips, chuckling in spite of the seriousness of the moment.

"So that's how it's gonna be, huh?" She said.

He smirked from underneath her, his hands resting on her hipbones.

"Perhaps." Thane rumbled, sliding his hands up her sides, his thumbs trailing along her stomach.

Shepard leaned in to kiss him again.

One of the first things she had noticed about Thane Krios was what a tactile person he was. He was always touching things. Stroking tabletops, fiddling with his guns, carefully thumbing through the pages of Kelly's antique books (though he couldn't read a word of English). In her cabin, at night, sometimes she would wonder how Thane would touch _her_ if given the chance. At last, she had her answer.


	4. Chapter 4

_In case anyone is still confused, yes, this is where you should turn back if you're not a) ok with graphic descriptions of sex, or b) 18. Everybody else, this is a first attempt at this sort of thing for me, so tell me what you think!  
_

_

* * *

_

Thane's hands traveled up her spine lightly, back down over her ribs, then hips, before settling in her hair, his fingertips moving in little circles on her scalp. He was continually amazed at the texture of her skin, her hair. She was actually softer than he'd imagined, and a lot warmer. When his touch fell from her shoulders and settled on her breasts, she drew back from the kiss abruptly, with a little noise from somewhere in her throat.

He blinked up at her, smiling coyly.

"I noticed how sensitive you are here before we faced the Collectors." He admitted. "And now I have the time to do more than notice."

Shepard arched an eyebrow at him, a blush reappearing on her cheeks.

"Well, I took note of some things myself." She said, leaning forward again.

Thane's eyes closed as her mouth found his throat, and all the breath came out of him abruptly. Pleasure started where her lips met his skin and spread out over his chest, then crept lower.

"Stop distracting me." He laughed, shrugging her face away from his sensitive jawline. Shepard made a disappointed sound and straightened up again, leaving him to his own explorations.

He felt her shiver as his fingertips ghosted over her skin, but let him continue-though she did bend forward to again catch his mouth with her own.

Shepard's hips moved against his seemingly without her knowledge, once, twice, and abruptly it was very uncomfortable to be wearing the bottom half of a set of body armor.

"Oh." Shepard said, clearly noticing his body's reaction to her. She bit her bottom lip in a distinctly Human fashion, looking both amused and coy. "Let me help you."

She shifted sideways, and despite the fact that he was much heavier than her, Thane suddenly found himself peering down at her from a now-familiar vantage point. He braced his weight on his hands and knees, now hypersensitive to the fact that she could be hurt without him even realizing.

_"Siha..." _He objected.

"Don't worry about it." She said, unbuckling his pants. She pushed them down off of his hips. He wriggled the rest of the way out of his garments and settled carefully onto his elbows, now shivering a little himself. He bent and continued what he'd started before, only now with his mouth.

He realized his body temperature was probably climbing steadily, but hers had just gone through the roof. He'd brought a flush to her skin, could feel the thudding of her heartbeat in his throat. Then Shepard's touch wandered down off his chest, and he lost all focus.

Thane pushed himself up onto his knees, pulling in a deep breath and re-centering himself.

"Now let me help _you_." He said, relieving her of her undergarment.

Kneeling between her legs, Thane again touched the angry skin on her inner thighs. It was irrational to feel guilty, he knew. He could not alter his body chemistry or her reaction to it, but he still regretted causing her discomfort. In time her body would acclimatize to his, he'd been assured. Her immune system would adapt.

In the meantime, though, he wondered if she was paying for the intimacy they'd experienced earlier. If the skin on her inner thighs was tender, surely her most sensitive areas were worse. Very gently, he probed further with his fingertips, watching her face in the wane blue light, searching for any indication that she was in discomfort.

Eyes that had held his closed and her lips parted. He felt her breath coming quicker on his chest. Her hips moved into his touch. Thane groaned, feeling tension begin to coil at the base of his spine. She was not only not in pain, she was very, very wet.

She pulled away with a little gasp.

"Now _you're_ distracting _me_." She laughed softly, putting a hand on his chest. "There was something I really wanted to do before but...well.

She was maneuvering him onto his back again, straddling his thighs, kissing his neck, then his chest, her soft hands moving over him. So caught up was he in the moment that he almost didn't realize what she was doing.

"_Siha!_ The pheromones!" He objected, pulling himself forcibly back to reality.

Shepard arched an eyebrow at him, poised over his lower body.

"I'll risk it." She said, then did.

* * *

Somehow she'd pulled him on top of her again. Thane's body was solid, and anchored her. Every neuron seemed to be firing at once. She could feel every point of contact between their bodies distinctively and simultaneously-his mouth against hers, her breasts pressing into his chest, their hips. Colors swirled behind her closed eyes.

"Thane..." She breathed, a little desperately. He seemed to know. His touch settled on her hip as she wrapped her legs around him. He trailed kisses down her throat, entering her with deliberate slowness.

She gasped, in the grip of sensations that were both totally extrinsic and completely familiar. Had it really only been a few hours? It felt like years. A few short hours ago they'd been in this bed, doing precisely what they were doing now, only now they were free. There was no lump in her throat-no nagging apprehension of what lay ahead, no desperate fear that every time they touched would be the last.

"I love you, _Siha._ I should have told you a hundred times before now." Thane rumbled, his voice against her collarbone. Then his hips moved, sending a ripple of pleasure through her that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Time dilated again. Had they been here for minutes, or hours? She lost track of everything but his hands and his body and his voice. They were moving together, in sync in the strange way they always had been despite the fact that they were born lightyears apart. Shepard felt intuitive about his body; the tiny unconscious sounds, the growing insistence of his kisses. She felt pulled along by his rhythm, perfectly keyed in to the increasing ache inside him.

Abruptly she came, but Thane followed, a shudder starting in his shoulders and moving all the way down his back, under her hands. She arched into him and reality seemed to shiver for a moment as pleasure reverberated through her from her body's core all the way to her fingertips and face.

What seemed like hours later, when her heart stopped beating in her ears, and her breath came back to her, Shepard felt him kiss her eyelids very softly.

She opened her eyes. Thane was on his side, facing her, propped up on one elbow. His chest was still rising and falling a little quicker than normal. He smiled lopsidedly.

"Yes, my _Siha?_" He asked, pushing hair away from her face.

"Hmm?" She inquired, unsure what he was responding to but not quite cognizant enough to ask.

"You said my name _very loudly _a moment ago."

Shepard felt another blush starting.

"Did I?" She said, wondering if sharp-eared partygoers in the cargo bay had just been enlightened as to where the Captain had disappeared to.

She cleared her throat.

"From what I understand, that's one common reaction among Humans to...that." Shepard continued, blushing furiously.

"Interesting." Thane said, his curiosity clearly piqued. "Tell me more."

"Oh no. You'll have to find out on your own." She said.

* * *

Shepard's smiled up at him dreamily, and Thane noticed for the first time that her pupils were massive, almost eclipsing the colored portions of her eyes.

"Allow me," Thane said, standing and carefully pulling her upright beside him, one arm around her waist. She leaned hard into him, but didn't object. He'd been counseled by an amused Dr. Mordin that simply taking a hot shower would shock the Human nervous system into behaving more normally again.

Somehow they made it up the stairs with only minimal difficulty, though Thane did have to remind her twice to stop looking at the fish and concentrate on the task at hand.

At last the bathroom loomed, and Thane turned on the shower, stepping into the spray with her still half-draped over him.

"The humidity!" She objected as he closed the glass door behind them.

"I'll risk it." He said firmly, positioning her under the water.

Almost immediately, Shepard seemed more herself. She blinked rapidly, putting one hand on the tile wall to steady herself. He disengaged himself carefully, then let her stand unaided.

"Oh." Shepard said, grinning at him, water running off of her hair. "Much better. Thank you. Did Mordin teach you that trick?"

"Yes." Thane admitted.

"Dirty old man, that Mordin." She said,

"Yes, quite." Thane remarked, allowing Shepard to wash his back, then begin to work some of the knots out of his shoulders. "I must remember to thank him."

Shepard laughed.

"How are you feeling, _Siha_?" He said, looking over his shoulder at her.

"Like I could sleep for about 14 hours. You?"

"Perhaps more like 16." He admitted.

Under the deluge of very hot water and the direct pressure of her very strong fingers, the muscles along his neck and shoulders finally started to relax.

"It's strange, you know." Shepard said finally, tracing the markings that ran down his spine.

"What is?" Thane asked, turning in her arms to face her. She blinked into the spray, water dripping from her hair, her face flushed from the heat.

"There's been so little time, and neither of us is used to talking. We have so much to learn about each other."

"Tomorrow there will be time. Now that there is a tomorrow." He said.


	5. Epilogue

Tali trudged down darkened hallways, dragging her bedding on the ground behind her. Under her booted feet, she could feel the deckplating vibrate with each bass-beat from the deck below. Quite a party was underway down there. Garrus had actually radioed her mere moments ago from the midst of it, inquiring (with slurred speech) if she was any good at something called "beer pong". He insisted that their Human crewmembers were taking advantage of his unfamiliarity with the sport.

This deck was quiet, at least. The mess hall was darkened, illuminated only by the digital display on the coffee machine. Tali sighed, remembering a Human adage she'd grown fond of: "Silence is golden."

She approached the medical bay, and palmed the door open. Then palmed the door shut again.

Tali turned back to the mess area and lowered herself into a booth. It wasn't private, but that was precicely the reason she wanted to sleep here, now. It seemed that all the private areas of the ship were being...occupied.

Tali wrapped the blanket around herself, wondering what the morning would bring. More than a little embarrassment for some people, she suspected. Especially for the usually reserved Dr. Chakwas and Zaeed Massani-considering what she'd just caught them doing on the exam table.

* * *

He was just drifting off to sleep, swathed in warmth and silence in Shepard's big bed, when she spoke.

"I love you too, Thane." She whispered. "I guess I'll have to tell you that tomorrow."

He smiled into the dark, though she couldn't see.


End file.
